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Shane Schofield
Shane Michael Schofield, also known as Scarecrow, is a U.S. Marine in Ice Station, Area 7, Scarecrow, Hell Island and Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves. He currently holds the rank of Captain (formerly lieutenant). History Early History When Shane Schofield was a child, his grandfather, Michael Schofield, was one of the most decorated Marines in the Corps. While Schofield became close to his grandfather, his relationship with his father, John Schofield, was considerably worse. John resented Michael's standing within the Corps, and despite being a successful businessman, he felt he was unable to step out from his father's shadow. This manifested in a pattern of systematic abuse against his wife and son. Schofield took on the brunt of the physical abuse in order to spare his mother from too much pain. When Schofield turned 18, he joined the Marine Corps in the Aviation Wing, where he became a pilot. Captain Shane M. Schofield was flying 'unofficial' reconnaissance flights in Serbian arispace until he was shot down and taken hostage by Bosnians. They proceeded to torture him, including cutting into his eyes. A Marine Force Reconnaissance team led by Buck Riley Sr saved him, but his eyes were useless. He was taken to John Hopkins hospital where they managed to restore his eyesight, but two long scars still remained. General McLean rechristened Schofield's call-sign as Scarecrow. Due to regulations regarding eyesight, he was not allowed to fly anymore and so Schofield enlisted in the Force Recon; eventually joining the same unit that rescued him along with Riley. He returned to Basic School where he did every course they had. He then got chosen to lead a Marine Reconnaissance Unit. Ice Station Schofield and his Marine Reconnaissance Unit 16 were sent to answer a distress signal from the isolated Wilkes American research station in Antarctica, from which they claim to have discovered an alien spaceship buried under the ice before the divers sent to investigate were killed. Schofield's team finds more than they bargained for when they are attacked by a French paratrooper unit, which disguised itself as a group of scientists from a nearby French station in order to gain the Wilke's stations scientists' trust. After narrowly defeating them, Schofield blames himself for not seeing them as soldiers and their lucky victory before sending some of his forces and a scientist down to the cavern with the spacecraft. Following the murder of one of his heavily wounded men, Schofield begins to worry that one of his men is a traitor, remembering a distress transmission he received from a fellow Marine, Andrew Trent, years before when Trent claimed that some of his unit's men had turned against the rest. Admitting these fears to Gena "Mother" Newman, he realises that a scientist named James Renshaw, who had apparently killed another scientist before their arrival might be the culprit, but is shot in the neck while awaiting Renshaw's status and location in the station, his heart stopping. However his would-be-assassin kicked his body into the diving pool, unknowingly kickstarting his heart due to the icy water acting like a defribulator. The unconscious Schofield was retrieved by Renshaw, who helped clear up the wound, noting Schofield had been lucky that he had been wearing a hidden kevlar collar where he had been shot, asking for help in proving his innocence. After confronting the Marine who had shot him, Scott "Snake" Kaplan and preventing him from killing Mother, he learned that the Intelligence Convergance Group (ICG), a secretive and insidious government intelligence organisation dedicated to maintaining America's technological superiority at any cost, was preparing to seize the spacecraft and kill Schofield and his team to prevent them from spreading word about the spacecraft. Simultaneously learning that a team from the British SAS was on its way, led by Briadier Trevor Barnaby, a former mentor intent on securing the secret of Wilkes Ice Station for the British, Schofield ordered his heavily-depleted team to evacuate. But en-route to McMurdo station, Schofield and Renshaw's hovercraft went over the ice cliff and into the ocean below, where Schofield destroyed a French submarine intending to destroy Wilkes. Finding diving equipment in what had once being another ice station before it had disappeared in a iceberg, Schofield and Renshaw made their way back to Wilkes and confronted the SAS team killing every single member, but is too late to save Buck "Book" Riley. After receiving a message from the still-alive Trent, Schofield learned the names of several ICG members, and escaped into the ice cavern to avoid being killed by the most deadly US military unit: Navy SEALs. Having learned the spacecraft was actually a long-lost prototype military aircraft called the Silhouette, and that a nuclear missile is set to destroy the Wilkes station, Schofield and the remaining survivors manage to activate the ship and Schofield narrowly manages to pilot it out. After engaging in a dogfight with a squadron of F-22 Raptors under the control of the ICG, Schofield lands on a USMC aircraft carrier, using the [[B-7A Silhouette|''Silhouette's]] last missile to destroy itself. After arriving in Pearl Harbour, Schofield is confronted by Sergeant-Major Chuck Kozlowski, one of the heads of ICG, who prepares to kill him, but is saved by Trent's intervention. After exposing the ICG, Schofield sits near the bed of the wounded Elizabeth Gant, refusing to leave her side until she wakes up. Area 7 Following the fallout from the Wilkes Ice Station incident. Schofield, Mother and Gant have being reassigned to Presidential Detail, stationed on Marine One, in order to keep them out of the public's eye since Schofield is still popular from the ICG / Wilkes situation. He has gone out on a date with Gant earlier, which ended somewhat awkwardly due to Schofield fear that Gant wouldn't want him because of his eyes and deciding not to kiss her at the end. While paying a routine visit to a top secret Air Force Base in the Utah desert, Schofield begins to suspect something is wrong, and is called upon to act as bodyguard for the President when the staff's Air Force personnel, 7th Squadron, led by Charles "Caesar" Russell, who issues a challenge; if the President's heart stops, fourteen major American cities will be destroyed, thanks to a device connected to the President's heart. Avoiding being killed immediately, Schofield leads a group through the base to locate the President, destroying an AWACS plane and finding a boy named Kevin contained in the facility. Soon his team find the President and drive away some of the 7th Squadron soldiers. Learning the base is a research facility to counteract a Chinese-developed virus called the Sinovirus, which could kill anyone with pigmentation cells, and Kevin is used to develop a cure, Schofield manages to procure the Football for the President so that the warheads won't be detonated at the end of a recurring 90 minute countdown. However Kevin has been taken by a team of South African Reccondos and turncoat scientist Gunther Botha, so Schofield takes off to rescue him, however they are attached by the 7th Squadron and are separated from the President, with Schofield in possession of the Football. Arriving at Lake Powell, Schofield and Book II survive the brawl and hide underwater while the Reccondos and Botha are killed and 7th Squadron seizes Kevin. While making their way back to Area 7 to get the Football to the President, Schofield tells Book II about his father's death by Barnaby's hands, earning the young Marine's respect. After finding the President and ending the Football's countdown, Schofield and the others are captured by the escaped prisoners of the facility, and kill some of the 7th Squadron soldiers they are forced to fight. Although Colonel Harper unleashes a Sinovirus grenade in an attempt to kill everyone else, Schofield uses the vaccine that Botha pocessed to vaccinate himself and his team. Schofield then pursues Caesar and the 7th Squadron's Echo unit to Area 8, where the Echo unit is planning to use a X-38 to take Kevin to a Chinese space station. En-route, Mother confronts him on not kissing Gant earlier, admitting he is afraid of Gant's thoughts about his eyes, and Mother reassures him about Gant's feelings. At Area 8, Schofield and the President manage to sneak aboard the 747 plane carrying the X-38 and then get on board that in turn. As the head into space, they retrieve Kevin and force the pilot to return to Area 7, where Caesar reveals he also possesses a transmitter on his heart, preparing to kill himself so that he will in some way succeed. Schofield rescues Gant from the remaining prisoner, Lucifer Leary, who is about to kill her, and kisses her at last. They then go to stop Caesar and stop the self-destruct sequence, however Caesar stops him. After narrowly defeating the leader of the 7th Squadron, Kurt Logan, Schofield is able to kill Caesar once Gant disrupts his transmitter, and the two escape the self-destructing facility. Later, after being awarded medals for saving the President's life, Schofield and Gant go on another date. Between Area 7 & Scarecrow Sometime after the Area 7 incident, Schofield's father John committed suicide, leaving twelve million dollars to his son. At Gant's suggestion Schofield donated all of it to a Washington, DC hospital as he felt the money was tainted. Schofield and Gant officially declared their relationship to the Corps, and due to policies regarding relationships between members of the same unit, Gant was reassigned to another unit, which she would be leading due to her recent promotion. Schofield, Gant, Mother and Ralph began planning a trip to Italy together, during which Schofield would propose to Gant. Scarecrow Eighteen months later, a mission to a former Soviet base turns out to be a sham, and Schofield learned that he was one of fifteen names on an international bounty hunt list, with each head valued at $18.6 million. Narrowly escaping ExSol and leader Cedric Wexley, Schofield races to find Gant to prevent anyone from using her to get to him. However he is too late, and another bounty hunting team, IG-88, captures her. Luckily another bounty hunter, Aloysius Knight or "The Black Knight", helps him to rescue Gant, having being paid by someone else to keep him alive until the end of the bounty. After rescuing Gant, they follow a lead to the Forteresse de Valois, a castle in France which is paying off the bounties. While waiting in disguise for Knight to gather information, Jonathon Killian, the castle's owner who appears pleasant to Schofield and Gant, but has realised Schofield's true identity and leaves him to the ExSol forces and another bounty-hunting group, the Skorpions. After a lengthy and highly destructive chase, Schofield is forced to parachute into the ocean while Knight and Gant are captured. Before being taken aboard a French aircraft carrier, Book II informs him that Killian and Majestic-12, the richest men in the world, are eliminating the people on the list because they are the only ones who can disarm a CincLock-VII security system, which will launch missiles at major locations and start a new Cold War. After the French (who have not forgotten about his defeat of the French Paratroopers and submarine) use him to disarm a CincLock-VII device and prepare to kill him, but Mother, Knight and Rufus save him just in time. However they inform him that Gant has being murdered. The distraught Schofield attempts suicide, but Mother stops him and convinces him not to and stop M-12's plans. After stopping all CincLock-VII systems, Schofield discovers Killian has his own plan, to create anarchy by using another missile to blow up Mecca. Using a X-15 to catch up to the missile, Schofield disarms it, but are forced to crash, after which they are apprehended and taken back to the Forteresse de Valois. Killian orders Cal Noonan, who killed Gant with a guillotine, to do the same to Schofield. Luckily Mother arrives, and in the ensuing battle Schofield kills Noonan and Wexley. After confronting Killian, Schofield takes Killian with him as he jumps out the window to kill them both, but Knight rescues him with his maghook. After a few months, Schofield receives a letter from Knight encouraging him to move on with his life and accept Gant's death, and decides to return to duty. Between Scarecrow and Hell Island However, despite being cleared for active duty, many of his superiors had not expected him to return at all, and being wary about his psycological state, the Marine Corps decided to assign him to a teaching position at Parris Island. This was seen as an insult by many for such a highly regarded soldier. However Schofield proved to be very good at it, earning the respect of many of his students. The Corps also sent Schofield to a series of psychiatrists to help him cope with Gant's death, however this did not help. Eventually he located a psycologist on his own, Dr Brooke Ulacco, who began treating Schofield. She taught him how to compartmentalise his memories of Gant using a technique called the method of locci, in which he kept his memories of her inside the idea of a submarine. Ulacco also told him that he could use this to also eject his memories completely if he wanted, however Schofield decided agaisnt it, believing that his memories of Gant were a part of who he was. Hell Island After some time, he was reequiped with a new team of Force Recon Marines and sent on a suicide mission to a base on Hell Island due to the belief he was only a liability who would surely be killed. Schofield's Marines, as well as a Delta Force team, a squad of SEALs and a force from the 82nd Airborne Division, prepare to investigate. Landing on an aircraft carrier, Schofield team are the only survivors of the groups that landed on the carrier after being attacked by gorillas, enhanced with a chip (nanotechnology) within their brains to turn them into soldiers. Defeating a large number of the gorillas by luring them into a helicopter and ditching it into the ocean, the Marines try to come up with a plan, during which Schofield realises the gorillas are being controlled by William "Buck" Broyles, the former leader of what was acknowledged to be the best Marines Unit. Using knowledge gained from his grandfather, Michael Schofield, who was one of many Marines who seized the island during World War II, he leads his men into an old munitions chamber where the gorillas are trapped and set to be killed in an explosion. However Dr Malcolm Knox, the DARPA scientist in charge of the project, stops them and apparently congratulates Schofield on his success for his unknowing participation in the test. But Knox orders the Delta team to execute them. However, Mother jams the signals controlling the chips in the apes, releasing them to murder the scientists while Schofield and his men kill the Delta team. Schofield floods the tunnels and drowns the gorillas along with the "Buccaneer". They leave on a C-17 which was sent to pick up the DARPA scientists and Delta teams along with the apes. Between Hell Island and Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves Following this, Schofield became a target for assassination by the French government, who offered to pay a $5 million bounty to anyone who could capture or kill him. The first attempt came during one of his monthly dinner outings with his grandfather, but Schofield had quickly spotted and disarmed them. The second came six months later while Schofield was driving home, and in a short chase he killed one man and ran the other car off the road. As no diplomatic solution between the new American Preisdent and French President could be reached, Schofield was assigned to a long-term equipment testing project to temporarily keep him out of harm's way, with a handful of Marines, including Mother, and four civilian contractors. This team was sent up into the Arctic Circle. Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves While he and his team were in the Arctic, the Army of Thieves takes control of the Dragon Island weapons facility, once the crown jewel in the Soviet weapons development program, and are preparing to set off a highly destructive weapon. Though Ira Barker and his SEAL team tell Schofield they will handle it, they are all apparently killed. Schofield and his team, now the only ones close enough to infiltrate the weapons depot, aim to disarm the Tesla weapon, an experimental device that, when fired, will ignite the atmosphere and trigger a firestorm that could annihilate the northern hemisphere. Along the way, they encounter Veronique Champion, an assassin working for the French Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) seeking to kill Schofield as an enemy of France. Unaware of the threat posed by the Army of Thieves, Champion agrees to help him, but promises to kill him once the threat is over. They question Ivanov, who reveals that in order to fire the Tesla weapon, the Army needs to seed the atmosphere with the acid-rocket fuel mixture, before firing a battery of missiles armed with red uranium into the cloud. Schofield decides to target the red uranium and throw it into the Arctic Ocean. Schofield and his team begin to fight their way through the installation, and Schofield is successful in stealling the spheres, however the Lord of Anarchy fired a missile armed with red uranium into the gas cloud, igniting it, but Barker, who survived the his team's failed assault, was able to shut down the gas diffusion process long enough to create a safe buffer, limiting the ignition. The Lord of Anarchy seeks Schofield's possesed spheres, and the team is scattered while destroying most of the remaining spheres. Schofield becomes closer to Champion after they connect over the loss of their loved ones, and soon recieves information from Fairfax about the Lord of Anarchy, Marius Calderon, and his plan to destroy China. He is soon captured by the Army. He is tortured by Calderon - being electrocuted and his signature sunglasses claimed as a prize by Calderon. Luckily he is revived by Bertie and finds then gives chase to Calderon before he can either launch the final missile, or detonate a warhead on-board a cargo plane. Calderon escapes by ejecting a stolen mini-submersible from his plane, but Schofield ejects the last missile from the plane before it can ignite the gas cloud. With the threat posed by the Army finally over, the Russian government authorises a missile strike on Dragon Island. Schofield races back to the facility and gathers his unit in a nuclear bunker hidden under a laboratory. The missile destroys Dragon Island and kills the remnants of the Army. Schofield and his team are found alive and well several days later, having survived the blast in a nuclear bunker. They are commended by the President for their actions, and the French government lift the bounty on Schofield's head for rescuing Veronique's team. Having finally come to terms with the death of Gant, Schofield starts a relationship with Veronique Champion, whose call-sign is ironically the French word for fox. However, upon returning home, his finds his sunglasses in his room, implying that Calderon is alive. Relationships Elizabeth "Fox" Gant Schofield's primary love interest, Gant was one of the original members of his reconnaissance team sent to Wilkes Ice Station. When Gant joined the USMC and met Shane Schofield at Pearl Harbour, she immediately became attracted to him. Schofield seemed to feel the same, and despite becoming good friends did not admit to their feelings. It wasn't until her injuries substained during ''Ice Station that they became closer, with Schofield never leaving her side while waiting for her to wake up from her coma. Before Area 7, they go on a date, which goes well until an awkward ending with Schofield not kissing her. However during the story, Mother convinces him that Gant's feelings are genuine, and he kisses her while rescuing her, and they later go on another date. By Scarecrow, they have disclosed their relationship to their superiors, resulting in them being placed in different units as is protocol. Schofield intended to propose to Gant in Italy, however she was killed, almost driving Schofield to suicide, before deciding to get revenge. Between Scarecrow and Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves, Schofield has being haunted by Gant's death, and sees a psycologist who helps him to get past her death. Veronique "Renard" Champion Trivia *Schofield has died twice, the first in Ice Station and the second in Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves. Both times he was resucitated. *Like most of the other leading characters of Reilly's novels, Schofield has a defining feature; in his case, the plus-shaped scars on his eyes. Category:Ice Station Category:Main Characters Category:Scarecrow Characters Category:Characters Category:Leading Characters Category:U.S. Characters Category:U.S. Soldiers Category:United States Marine Corps Category:Scarecrow Category:Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves Category:Area 7 Category:Hell Island Category:Protagonists